It was a brutal scene. It was so powerful that it was compared to the “pieta” – the image of the Virgin Mother Mary cradling the lifeless body of Jesus Christ. It was on July 23, 2016 when a journalist from the Philippine Daily Inquirer took this powerful photo. Michael Siaron’s lifeless body being cradled by his wife. This image became the banner image for people who fought the government’s bloody war on drugs. It became their poster image for accusing the government of coordinating and perpetuating extra-judicial killings in the Philippines.
It is undeniable that the image is powerful and any reasonable journalist and media outfit would be crazy not to run with it. The problem with the Inquirer is the fact that they not only ran the image with the story of his death but they used it as material for propagandizing in other articles. They turned the story of a sad death of a loved one into a story of state sanctioned extra-judicial killings without any proof. Inquirer was content with using the image as proof of the drug war without any real evidence but the fact that someone is dead and there was a cardboard beside him that said “I am a drug pusher”. Michael Siaron’s death was then used by the Inquirer and many other journalists and opinion makers to justify their opposition to the drug war. The power of the image even reached the international community causing condemnation from other nations and international rights agencies. Here is what Philem Kine of Human Rights Watch said about Michael Siaron’s death:
This was the Inquirer spin of this image – the image humanized the government’s war on drugs. When you do a search of the Inquirer website for “Michael Siaron” you will see 67 results mentioning his name. This is a combination of news articles and opinion articles about Michael Siaron’s death. When you do a google reverse image search of the Michael Siaron photo you will see that this photo was used in thousands of news articles around the world since his death on July 23, 2016. It is safe to say that Inquirer was successful in its propagandizing and in its efforts to maximize the impact and reach of the photo.
The PNP recently completed their investigation on Michael Siaron’s death and ruled that he was killed by a known drug syndicate ring in the area. This confirms the administration’s theory since the beginning that drug syndicates themselves are killing possible snitches in the area. According to his wife, Michael Siaron himself was a drug addict and may have known who the suppliers were in his area so he became a target for this drug syndicate. This is a classic reaction from drug syndicates when a government starts cracking down on them, they go after people who might expose them. This angle was never really reported on by the media because they had an agenda. To them and to the administration’s critics there is only one explanation for the deaths – state sanctioned extra-judicial killings.
Now that the investigation on Michael Siaron’s death has been completed and his case proven to not be extra-judicial killing by the government, what kind of media attention is the Philippine Daily inquirer giving this development? Just one article.
A very simple, straight to the point, just report the fact, and let’s get out of here type of article. No remorse for propagandizing the death of an individual for profit and for political agenda. No remorse for bastardizing the journalism profession for being an agent of propaganda instead of accurate information. No remorse for making the life of an ordinary police officer extremely difficult by falsely accusing them of extra-judicial killings. No remorse for keeping the public blind from the dangers of being entangled with drug syndicates.
The rest of the Philippine media is equally guilty of Inquirer’s sins in this matter because they kept silent and they turned a blind eye to Inquirer’s propagandizing – in fact they rode the viral wave caused by the photo to propagandize in their own ways. Now that the truth has come out they continue to remain silent. I truly believe that the Philippine media died with Michael Siaron.
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